H is for Havok by Bluebird Toys, Figures & Figure Sets

This is how they came from Argos, two random packets, in this case Nexus Tribunes and Pteravore Razors.

Here we see most of the units fielded by the Nexus, less those shown in the previous post. Front L-R are three members of the Brotherhood and - baseless - a Doomguard. Middle row shows the three Kinsmen and three Nexus Troopers, sans bases. The rear row has the Tribunes on the left and Assault Troops on the right.

The Nexus were supposed to get two larger vehicles; a Mauler light-attack tank and a Hammer heavy-assault tank, I don't believe either ever made it to market? The Hammer sharing a code number (N-09) with the Storm-trooper set, it's a fair bet they weren't issued either!

The Karn present themselves, again from to back, Left to right; Klan Warriors, two un-based Kai-unes and three Karn Troopers with behind them; a set of Borkian Mercenaries and two Suma-kai, again without bases.

Most sets have 'detailing' stickers on weapons, shields or - in this case - wings, these seem to have been applied before final sale to end-user. The karn also have 'lost' units; Glaive Riders (share a code with the Banshee Thopters) and Heavy Weapons.

Final Army/Race was the Pteravore, and the only set I've found are the Razors. Two further sets had army/points cards included in the battle set; P-02 'Screamers' and P-03 'Hell Hounds', I suspect that they were never issued.

Inset photo shows the base types/designs I've yet to identify/allocate to a specific set, and any help given with be gratefully received/acknowledged.

I've managed to identify some bases from the two mint sets and the play-set, most of the rest are around 70% sure, the baseless ones are probably those in the inset, as to the green ones? The stickers were placed in the factory, so both the green ones and some black ones I have without bases might be for the 'Thopters' or something?

Note; Because some other sets share numbers, it may be that those figures with a vehicle code accompanied that vehicle (packaging-wise?) or were destined to?

A is for AT-AT and AT-ST from Galoob, Kenner, Hasbro

I'm not some Klingon learning died-in-the-wool sci-fi fanatic, but I do have a soft spot for the "Increasingly inaccurately named" (to quote Douglas Adams) Star Wars Trilogy, and like most aficionados; The second film (The Empire Strikes Back) with it's set piece arctic battle on the frozen ice-planet 'Hoth'.

The AT-AT is the main mode of transport for the ground troops, a sort of mechanical horse/APC, and here are the three main versions of the 'Action Fleet' AT-AT. On the left is the first issue, then a motorised version (which needs the flattest of surfaces to move an inch!) which was by Tiger Electronics - if memory serves. Finally the re-issue by Hasbro with it's daft snow 'weathering'.

One of the Micro-Machine play-sets by Galoob had this 'dead' AT-AT, I've cut a couple out and given them a bit of work. The one on the left is a work in progress, the one on the right is as good as finished. I had to pare-down the blobs of snow that were all over them, and with the earlier one went on to fill some of the seams on the roof, I wish I hadn't now, but like tanks today, there would be many variants, so; hey ho!

Galoob 'Walker' behind, with the Tombola 'prize-egg' premium in front. Sandwiched between the two is the Pizza-Hut premium.


In the final film (The Return of the Jedi) we met AT-ST's, smaller two-man reconnaissance 'Walkers', and it's likely a few of them would have been operating as a screening force on the flanks of the main snow troop attack. Indeed, I think George Lucas retro-fitted a AT-ST into the re-mastered version of the original Star Wars movie during the huge hype when the new films were announced and various boxed sets of the old films were issued on VHS, just as it became obsolete. Lucas may be a good film maker, but he's far better at getting the pounds out of peoples pockets

In front of the Action Fleet ST, is the standard Micro-Machine version, and the two Micro-Machine AT-AT's to the right. One of the things I hate about these series are the complete inconsistency of scale, adherence to scale or compatibility. It's visually OK to use the wider range of figures in the Micro-Machine range with the Action Fleet vehicles, but for a realistic AT-AT you would have to use the 6" Palitoy/Hasbro Action figure AT-AT for true accuracy, remember the Land Speeders flew among the legs of these things.

Or...You could get the far more accurate Wizards of the Coast AT-AT, but get a credit card first, you'll need it, And that range is for another day!

Z is for Zoo Brix by Airfix

I fell off a ladder the other day so - as our Antipodean friends would say - I'm a bit crock at the moment, I'm also taking photo's and researching a multiple post, so it's more archive tonight I'm afraid, these were among the first toys made by the then household goods producer; Airfix Products Ltd.

They rattle, they float, they build AND they've got a small animal inside! Bargain, I'll have a dozen gross for whatever guineas you're asking!

The box end tells us there were three assortments, and this box has assortment 'A', these are the same animals as were issued on header cards, but with flat bases, anyone wanting to see the others should subscribe to Plastic Warrior Magazine (link to right), as a little bird tells me they will be featured there in the near future.

With a British Paratrooper to gauge size here are the animals, I haven't got the full hang of the Collage feature in Picasa yet so it kept cutting off bits of the animals, so the Rhino and Kangaroo suffer slightly from camera shyness here!

W is for Waterloo at Haldane Place!

What with the apparent demise of Eric Williamson's website, I guess some out there will be needing an occasional 'fix' of Airfix to feed their 'Box Type' habit....

Prussian Infantry; the three 'Corner-edged graphic' box types, and colour variants of the 'Long' box French Infantry.

Highland Infantry get laid low by a small bug that went around.

Clockwise from top left; Distribution of ponies in the French Artillery; 1st version of the 'Blue' box; two variations of the 3rd 'Window' version Blue box; 2nd 'Black-end' version of the same 'Blue' box.

Comparison between one of the Arab horses on the left, the British Grenadier Officers horse in the middle and the French Infantry Officers horse on the right. Note how the foot pegs get bigger as subsequent generations of Machinists/Engravers/Tool-men get hold of the original!

This last picture and the Artillery horse one is designed to help people check sets as 'original contents', too many dealers will chuck any old thing in a box.

C is for Culpitt's Cake Decorations of Cowboys and Indians

Going through the archive for 'lazy-post' last night I found this, which was going to be my next post when the Laptop crashed back in April, so here it is!

Sold by Culpitt's in the UK, these were made in Hong Kong, first with separate bases and 8 (?) poses, then with moulded on bases and only 4 poses. The "8 (?)" is because there seems to be an Indian missing, this may be because he/she is actually an it! I.E. it may be a Tee-pee, camp fire or Totem pole. in which case it's somewhere else in the collection (I hope!), does anybody know who/what the missing 8th piece is...if it's missing.

Other rows/columns are colour variants. The based ones are quite common, the older one's are getting harder to find. [These were produced/issued in Portugal in cans of Toddy chocolate powder, thanks to Jorge Freitas for that, see; Comments.]

B is for Bit and Pieces

Another lazy post, a few more images from the archive, time waits for no man and I've been doing other things today!

First up a couple of 40mm Elastolin Roman Cavalry, my favorite sculpts from this manufacturer, no matter how 'inaccurate' the rivet counters may hold them, they were toys - in their day - and bloody good ones!

Montaplex Sioux Indians from Spain, the packet looking as old as it is, the figure sprues looking like they left a plastics factory in Kent at six o'clock this morning! Airfix piracy's of course!

Hong Kong Bendy Toys of Cowboys and Indians, these are about 60mm, and were sold flattish, to get them all in the box.

Hat variations on the Britains 'Detail' Royal Canadian Mounted police (RCMP).

Happy New Year

A bunch of white doves clearing up after a load of straw has left the stack yard this afternoon.

B is for Beachead - Hong Kong Style, Part 1 - Beach Head Assault

As promised yesterday evening - a closer look at the Beach Head Assault sets from Hong Kong makers and some linked bits and pieces (second post - below)

This is the set I looked at the other night, figures are close to H0/00 and quite well detailed, bunker is basically the Giant copy of the Marx pillbox.

The same set, this time however it has had Byra Products overprinted and one lot of troops (the 'Enemy') have been replaced by the Airfix copies usually found in lucky-bags and cheap Christmas Crackers.

We then have 'Set Number 273' again in two slightly different versions, and this shows well how the HK manufacturers would plagiarise each other as happily as they would copy western producers. Although these look the same, they are in fact smaller, have new artwork (with one differing greatly from the other; planes...) and have slightly different contents, both from each other and the preceding sets.

These are later sets with poorer quality figures, to the Britains copies have now been added copies of the Crescent Desert Infantry. The left hand set is probably the earlier (closer to the original artwork, better detail to the armoured cars and planes), while the one on the right is the copy of a copy of copies!

The Haglon/Hagemeyer set is closer to the first two in style, contents and card size, but has the poor quality figures of the two above sets so I've placed it here in the 'hierarchy' of card types. Note also it's numbered 272 a digit below the above two sets, so there will be a connection lost in the mists of time, and it may be this set slightly predates them?

As so much HK stuff has 3 or 4-digit numbers, I suspect the numbers pertain to contracts rather than stock numbers, or; some do at least!!?!

Thanks must go to James Opie for this and all Hong Kong articles as his generousity in the past pretty-much doubled my HK collection at a stroke.

B is for Beachead - Hong Kong Style, Part 2 - Beach Head Invasion etc...

Continuing where I left off above and starting with a comparison shot between the set they were all pretending to be (Airfix Beach-Head Invasion Set) and the various pretenders.

The reason the big Airfix sets are so uncommon is twofold, first; big ticket items don't last, they get caught up in house fires and clear-outs in a way little carded stocking-fillers left at the back of the 'secret' drawer don't (the water marks on this one are from the summer floods of 2007, not some calamity of the 1960's), the other reason is simply that not many sell to begin with, if you're a parent sent - by Santa - to purchase "...a big landing set like Timmy down the road." are you going to spend 2 pounds, thirteen shillings and sixpence on the Airfix set...or...2/11d on one of the carded Hong Kong sets?
Contents are similar to the earlier 'Assault' sets, but title differs and graphics are all new. However we are back to the H0/00 reasonable quality copies of Britains Lilliput only. The bunker is the most accurate copy of the Marx original having only two slits and the protected doorway (usually filled in, or no more than a bump on these HK copies).

The Jungle set is clearly from the same series as the above, set in Vietnam and selling for 3/11d in 1967. A fine example of why you should leave cities for idiots to live in...it's a whole shilling more than the Byra set was selling for in Andover the same year!!

This set was bought in Chelsea, the same year, also for 3/11d, at least you get more with this set! The barbed-wire is marked "GIANT (P) HONG KONG" yet this is clearly not from the Giant stable, only helping to muddy the water if you study Giant! Compare the bunker here with the previous sets, three slits (one designed for archers!) and no doorway.

An attempt at the earlier artworks, this is a late 1960's set with poor copies of the Blue Box and/or Triang Space Commando figures.

A is for Airfix (and Craft, Dairylea, Tehnolog, Humbrol, Robogear...)

Ringing in the changes with the old and the new I thought I'd look at a couple of Aifix rarities.

Among the first sets issued by Airfix was the Farm Stock set, and in common with other early sets it was snapped up by the food industry as a premium, in this case by Craft Foods for their Dairylea Cheese Spread. The Cowboys and Combat Group had both been used by comics and the Civilians were issued on the cover of a Railway modelling magazine. The Astronauts too were used for a mail-away promotion.

The box (big enough for a whole set!) clearly states 'Three Animals' yet this is the second set I've seen with 4 animals, both times it's the very small animals, and the conclusion is that they felt three weren't enough if using the smaller one's so included an extra without reprinting or printing a new box graphic.

Just before they went bust for the umpteenth time, Airfix bought-into this system from Russia. At the London Toy Fair in about 2005 or '06? I ran into the Airfix stand (first time they'd had a stand for a long time) and they were showing these with their own label.

As they had only just appeared in the Pocketbond catalogue in the Russian graphics, I was impressed by the speed Airfix had got on what could have been a profitable bandwagon and told them as much - anything anybody does to break Games Workshop's monopoly is OK by me!

The box art, they weren't designed to be 'multi-pose', but the judicious use of glue, stretched sprue and spare bits of plastic soon made them as versatile as anything GW have produced. Sadly once Heller had taken them under, this range failed to survive the Hornby takeover! The Robogear website was last updated in January 2007 so I'm afraid the promising range is dead?

C is for Camel Cigarette Ephemera

H is for Hong Kong Copies of the Britains Lilliput Trooscale Figures

I have dozens of these old HK carded sets, but thought I'd put up a couple of 'typical' examples, just to finish this sequence on Britains Lilliput Khaki Infantry.

Early sets tend to have smaller figures with more 'extras' - in this case Marx/Blue Box bunkers, a micro-scale clip together wharf, bridge ("One at a time please!") and tank traps. The micro-scale armoured cars go so well with the 54mm barbed wire?

Later, larger figures probably taken from the Britains 54mm originals, these figures often come with similar copies of the Crescent 8th Army/Desert Infantry.

Close-up showing the glossy appearance of these figures, and poor detail, some miss whole limbs or body parts, these date from the mid-late 1970's, the beach-assault from the '60's.

A is for A Call to Arms Reissue of Britains Lilliput Trooscale

As pointed out below, A Call To Arms (ACTA) obtained the moulds for the Britains Lilliput Trooscale figures and reissued them in the early 'Noughties'.

The eight poses as reissued in a dark green plastic, to the left is an early 'Empire Made' piracy from Hong Kong of the 54mm originals. He has no face!

E is for EKO copies of Britains Trooscale Lilliput

Further to the article below and the comments resulting; long before A Call To Arms (ACTA) got their hands on the mould, EKO in Spain had indulged in a bit of 'homage'!

Seen here is a complete set of the EKO figures with both the common types of packaging/'Header Card' associated with them. Very true to the originals, detail on this later set is markedly less clear than the figures accompanying the earlier red and white card.

News, views etc...Airfix, Eric Williamson

Eric Williamson's Airfix website does seem to have finally died, so I've removed it from the link list but I'll keep an eye out and an ear to the ground and if it reappears I'll re-link to it. Shame; it was a good grounding in the subject, but maybe someone is working on an updated listing? I would, but I have too much else to cover, and - shamefully - am sitting on a couple of Airfix unique'ees for the long planned book!